Status of Women Committee on May 23rd, 2013

[Prof. Linda Collinsworth]

Yes. We have attempted to operationalize what we mean by severity, because the more severe the harassment, the more negative consequences there are. Severity has been operationalized in this way, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to remember all facets of it.

One of the facets is whether the individual is targeted herself or whether it's more of a general denigration of women, if that's the kind of harassment you're experiencing. It tends to be more severe if the harassment is directed at you, if there is difficulty trying to escape from the situation, or if you're unable. Many of the women we have interviewed and surveyed depended on their job for their insurance. It may be insurance used for their children, for example. People will ask why they didn't quit their job. Well, that's not an easy thing to do. The more the woman is in a situation that she can't escape from, the more severe the consequences are for her.

If it's physical, that makes it more severe than if it is merely verbal. Most of the harassment that occurs in the workplace according to this study is not physical, but if it is physical, that makes it worse.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I appreciate—

Go ahead.

[Prof. Linda Collinsworth]

There are objective factors around what happens exactly to the person that makes it more stressful. The introduction to your question seemed to be getting at why the same thing may happen to this one person who then develops PTSD, and the same thing happens to another woman who recovers fairly quickly or easily. Those are individual differences that do exist. We haven't been able to examine every single individual difference, but one of the things that has garnered the most interest, at least in the legal arena in the United States, has to do with previous victimization. We know that previous victimization makes one more vulnerable to developing anxiety and PTSD, even if the stressor is not as severe.

We know the rates of childhood sexual abuse in the United States are somewhere around 25%. If someone comes from a home where she may have experienced sexual or physical abuse as a child, or maybe she's partnered with someone who is abusive, all of that victimization can predispose her then to greater damage, even if it's not as severe as what her previous trauma was.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Thank you. I don't have a lot of time.

So in the workplace, for example, they can't seem to get away from that person as easily as if it happened in the public somewhere. The reason I ask that question is that I have worked in the mental health field and the criminal justice field, and some of our colleagues who we thought were really strong all of a sudden we saw the depression because of something that had occurred. All in all, whether it occurs once or several times, it's not acceptable.

The previous witness indicated that with the RCMP, basically there's a 10-day suspension in place. That's the worst outcome at this point. Then they go back to work. I believe it's probably a 10-day suspension with pay.

Would you see that as a positive move to try to prevent or to set an example by having a 10-day suspension? Would you consider this a light sentence or a heavy sentence?

[The Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

Quickly, Madam Collinsworth.

[Prof. Linda Collinsworth]

That's a really hard judgment to make, so far removed from knowing the circumstances of what occurred. Sexual harassment occurs along a continuum in which some women are groped or some women are called on the phone all the time. There's just a whole range of harassment.

Here's what I do know. It's always better to have some sort of sanctions for the offender. It can't stop there, however. The woman continues to work in a workplace then, where perhaps people have become alienated against her. Maybe they're friends with the offender and they'll ask why she reported him. They'll say, “Don't you know he has a family at home he has to take care of?”

[The Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

Sorry to interrupt you, Madam Collinsworth, but time has expired.

Madam Bateman, you have seven minutes.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much, Dr. Collinsworth, for your research and the work you've done to make change, positive change, and not just for the women in the United States, because I know we will benefit from your research.

I am most particularly interested in your comments about sanctions. We in this committee want to make a difference for all employees, not just women, but all employees in the federal public service or any related organization, and make sure that we know how to create a better harassment-free workplace, a respectful workplace.

The current status of the federal Government of Canada is that we.... You were just talking about this, so feel free to expound upon your thought with regard to the previous question.

Our current approach, Dr. Collinsworth, is that we protect the harasser in some cases more than we protect the victim. Our government is very interested in protecting victims on every level. Interestingly enough, in the public service of Canada, we erase any trace of harassment from the record of a gentleman or a woman who has harassed, who has either just harassed or sexually harassed an individual. This record disappears in two years, and then that person is free to go on with a clear record, have another job, and harass again in a different work circle.

Your comments, Dr. Collinsworth, about sanctions, and how you have documentary evidence indicating that clear sanctions actually give greater clout to the prevention, is I think a crucial piece for all of us. It's the taxpayer who pays for our public service. I look at your research, and I can see that the cost associated with this is enormous, not just to the person but to the entire system.

If you could expand on the sanctions, then, I would be very grateful.

[Prof. Linda Collinsworth]

The research seems to indicate that sanctions are effective for multiple reasons. If someone is sanctioned for their misconduct, it communicates, first, to people who are potential offenders that this will not be tolerated in the workplace. If they do it, they're going to have sanctions or consequences.

It also communicates to the potential targets, or to the women in this case, that we, the organization, take this seriously, and if they come forward, they're not risking anything. They're not risking being demoted. They're not risking losing your job. They're not risking being retaliated against by the organization, that it will take their complaints seriously.

Those things are what climate is all about. It communicates to both men and women in the workplace that the organization takes it seriously, and that there will be consequences if they choose to behave in this way. It is just an extremely important message to send to employees.

Our experience is that in organizations, such as in corporations, at the corporate level they seem to get it. It's getting it down into the plants and to the local organizations that there seems to be this disconnect.

If you as an organization tell your employees that you take this seriously, then you have to back it up. You can't just say that you have zero tolerance in the workplace. You have to follow it up with these kinds of concrete actions if someone steps over the line.

The problem, of course—

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Forgive me, Dr. Collinsworth, but perhaps you could expand on some of what those concrete actions are.

In terms of consequences, clearly you can't create a respectful workplace without that structure, and yet we are quite hampered with.... You know, we have unions protecting the rights of all employees. We have a respectful workplace and we want to respect the rights of all employees. Yet somebody who gets off scot-free after sexually harassing somebody—I mean, it really can't be tolerated in the public service of Canada—their slate is wiped clean after two years.

What kind of concrete sanctions have you seen be effective?

[Prof. Linda Collinsworth]

They run the gamut. Frequently some of the most effective are graduated sanctions, depending on how severe the first incident is, of course. There are suspensions, suspensions without pay, up to and including dismissal from their job. Certainly that should be on the table as a potential consequence if they choose to engage in a pattern of harassment, again, depending on how severe it is. If sexual assault has occurred as part of the harassment, then I don't think you say they're suspended for one day and they can come back the next day. The sanctions need to be set up in such a way that they are graduated at the same time that allowance is made for the severity of the incident we're talking about.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Do you have documentation of various organizations such as the military and corporations where dismissal is in their sexual harassment policy? Quite frankly, as a mother of a daughter, I don't want my child—she's only 15 now—to be at risk, and certainly not in a workplace.

[The Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

You've got 30 seconds.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Dr. Collinsworth.

[Prof. Linda Collinsworth]

A study was done in our U.S. military which showed that sanctions were the most effective tool an organization can use. I can direct you to that study if you would like to have a copy of it.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I would very much like that.

[Prof. Linda Collinsworth]

I would have to do some research for you on other sanctions in other organizations.

[The Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

Thank you very much, Madam Bateman.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

Thank you, Ms. Collinsworth.

It is now Ms. Sgro's turn.

You have seven minutes.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much, Dr. Collinsworth, for being here with us today and helping us with this important study.

The issue of the RCMP is the one I am most concerned about, and the kind of sexual abuse and harassment and so on that has gone on. I realize you may not be that familiar with it, but the government of the day has introduced a bill that would give the commissioner more power to suspend people and so on, rather than this code of conduct. Some people are concerned that putting more power in the hands of the top-notch commissioners is not the answer, because clearly some of the rank and file today are being told that with the new legislation, they'd better just do as they're told, otherwise they could be fired instantly, if the commissioners wanted to do that.

Some people are saying it's just another form of intimidation to be used within the service. Certainly from our perspective, we question whether that's the way you deal with changing the culture of an organization.

Given the fact that this is very much a male-dominated organization, and women are coming into a field where they're clearly not wanted by many—and maybe this is the older generation, and maybe they all need to leave and bring in the younger ones who will have more respect for women—why do they seem to feel so threatened by having females in a male-dominated profession like the RCMP?

[Prof. Linda Collinsworth]

Most people in an organization are invested in some way in the organization. They're invested in their position; they're invested in the power they have. They may also be very dedicated. I'm not suggesting they're not dedicated to the cause, their profession, but obviously they have other kinds of personal investments. So it's not unusual when women make inroads into certain professions in certain organizations that there is resistance, there is pushback from males who have dominated in the field.

It doesn't mean it can't change. Obviously we've seen all kinds of changes take place, but there is always pushback. It's a power struggle among factions of who's going to get to say what.

Regarding your first remarks about handing over power to administrators who will use this as a threat against employees, I don't think that's an appropriate sanction at all. You don't simply tell an administrator someone is sexually harassing somebody. Obviously, there has to be due process and examination of the charges and some sort of system whereby both sides are heard, that sort of thing.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

I certainly agree with you. This is not a new problem for us in the RCMP. This has been going on for at least 25 years that I can research back into the particular lawsuit that was raised yesterday here in Canada.

Part of the rationale from the head of the RCMP is that they did not have the ability to fire people. It was just a matter of shuffling people around and transferring people from one place to the other, rather than dealing with the issue head on.

One of the gentlemen I met within the RCMP last week said that when you make a complaint, you become a target because you are labelled a troublemaker even though you were very legitimate in what your concerns were, but they will just transfer you. Then there are units that wouldn't even want to accept you because you're labelled a troublemaker, and they don't want that either.

It's really intimidation in many ways.

What would you suggest our response to some of those comments should be?

[Prof. Linda Collinsworth]

I don't know whether this will translate into French because it's an alliteration in English. This is so common, moving someone who has been found to have been a sexual harasser to another job. We call it pass the perpetrator. It happens all the time and it's completely inappropriate.

Individuals who have some sort of pattern of harassing either need to be educated....There needs to be an intervention of some sort for the person, not simply a sanction, but also some sort of intervention if you're going to keep them in the workplace, because if they have not changed their behaviour, obviously they are going to do it somewhere else.

Having said that, I'll recommend another researcher to you. His name is Dr. John Pryor. He has done research which shows that men differ in their likelihood to sexually harass, but even men who have a high likelihood to sexually harass, based on a measure he developed, will not harass if they are in an organization where there are sanctions and things he calls management norms, where the managers are modelling this. Sometimes it's the manager who is actually doing the harassing. That's communicating to the men in the organization that if their boss is doing it, they can do it too.

Dr. John Pryor has some good things to say about offenders.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

I think your last comments captured a big part of what the problems are in the RCMP.

Thank you very much, Dr. Collinsworth.